Monday, August 31, 2015

Egypt: Establish International Inquiry into Rabaa Massacre

No Charges 2 Years After Security Forces Killed At Least 800 Protesters

Egyptian authorities have held no government official or member of
the security forces responsible for the mass killing of protesters in
Cairo’s Rab’a al-Adawiya Square two years ago. On August 14, 2013,
security forces killed at least 817 people and most likely more than
1,000 at a mass sit-in in what probably amounted to crimes against
humanity.

Given the Egyptian government’s refusal to properly investigate the
killings or provide any redress for the victims, the United Nations
Human Rights Council should establish an international commission of
inquiry into the brutal clearing of the Rab’a al-Adawiya sit-in
and other mass killings of protesters in July and August 2013. The
African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights should establish a
similar investigation.

“Washington and Europe have gone back to business with a government
that celebrates rather than investigates what may have been the worst
single-day killing of protesters in modern history,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director. “The UN Human Rights Council, which has not yet addressed Egypt’s
dangerous and deteriorating human rights situation, is one of the few
remaining routes to accountability for this brutal massacre.”

The United States and Egypt’s European allies, rather than seriously
addressing the rank impunity of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s
government, contend that it is a national security priority to resume
their relationships with Egypt, including providing Egypt with military
aid and hardware.

The dispersal of the Rab’a al-Adawiya sit-in occurred on August 14,
2013, a little more than a month after the Egyptian military – under
then-Defense Minister al-Sisi – removed Mohamed Morsy, Egypt’s first
freely elected president and a former high-level official in the Muslim
Brotherhood.

Morsy’s ouster followed mass protests against his rule.
Afterward, Brotherhood supporters and others opposed to the military’s
actions held protests throughout Egypt. Security forces systematically
confronted the protests with deadly force. Between Morsy’s ouster on
July 3, 2013, and August 16, 2013, Human Rights Watch documented six instances when security forces unlawfully killed protesters, leaving at least 1,185 people dead.

The dispersal of the Rab’a al-Adawiya Square sit-in, where the crowd
reached 85,000 at its height, was the worst of these incidents. The
government announced its intention to clear the sit-in but did not
announce a date.

At first light on August 14, security forces using
armored personnel carriers and snipers fired on the crowd with live
ammunition shortly after playing a recorded announcement to clear the
square through loudspeakers. Police provided no safe exit and fired on
many who tried to escape.

Authorities had anticipated a high number of casualties; both
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim and Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawy
said publicly after the dispersal that they had expected that more
protesters would have been killed.

A year later, al-Beblawy was quoted
as saying in an interview with al-Masry al-Youm, an independent
newspaper, that “all options were bad” for resolving the sit-in and
that anyone who “committed a mistake” should be sent to court.

Earlier, Egyptian military and police killed 61 protesters outside
the Republican Guard headquarters on July 8 and 95 protesters at Cairo’s
Manassa Memorial on July 27. On the day of the Rab’a dispersal, police
killed at least 87 protesters while clearing another Cairo sit-in at
al-Nahda Square. On August 16, police killed at least another 120 people
who continued to protest Morsy’s ouster in Ramsis Square in downtown
Cairo.

The widespread and systematic nature of these killings, and the
evidence Human Rights Watch collected, suggests that the killings were
part of a policy to use lethal force against largely unarmed protesters,
making them probable crimes against humanity.

In December 2013, the Egyptian government established the June 30
Fact-Finding Committee, named after the date on which protests against
the Morsy government began, to look into the killings and the events
that precipitated and followed them. The government released an
executive summary of the committee’s findings on November 26, 2014, that
did not recommend charges against any government official or member of
the security forces.

The government has not released the full report and has not signaled
any intention to do so. The Prosecutor General’s office, which has the
prerogative and responsibility to open criminal investigations, has not
announced any charges.

On July 16, al-Sisi’s cabinet approved renaming
Rab’a square after Hisham Barakat, the prosecutor general who gave legal
approval to the 2013 dispersal and who was assassinated in June.

The only prosecution to emerge from the mass killings of July and
August 2013 concerned the suffocation deaths of 37 protesters on August
18, 2013. The men, who had been arrested at the Rab’a dispersal, died
after a policeman fired a teargas canister inside the overcrowded prison
van where they were temporarily held.

On August 13, 2015, a court
reduced a 10-year sentence for a police lieutenant colonel involved in
the deaths to 5 years following a retrial. The case could still proceed
to Egypt’s highest appellate court. Three lower-ranking officers have
all received one-year suspended sentences.

Police arrested hundreds of protesters during the Rab’a sit-in
dispersal and held them in pretrial detention for nearly two years. On
August 12, prosecutors referred the case to trial, accusing the
protesters of a number of crimes, including blocking roads and harming
national unity. Al-Shorouk, an independent newspaper, reported that prosecutors have not disclosed the number of protesters being sent to trial, though lawyers believe that more than 400 are being held.

US officials have refrained from characterizing Morsy’s removal as a
coup, which would have triggered the immediate halt of military aid.
But after the Rab’a killings, the US cancelled planned joint military
exercises with Egypt and announced a review of “further steps that we
may take as necessary with respect to the US-Egyptian relationship.”

In October 2013, the US suspended the delivery of four major weapons
systems to Egypt. In August 2014, it lifted that suspension and
delivered 10 Apache attack helicopters. In March 2015, the
administration lifted all suspensions,
allowing delivery of 12 F-16 fighter jets and up to 125 M1A1 tank kits,
while also announcing plans to tighten restrictions on Egypt’s military
aid buying power.

In August, Secretary of State John Kerry went to
Cairo to lead the first Strategic Dialogue with Egypt since 2009.

European governments – particularly France, Germany, and the United
Kingdom – have embraced al-Sisi’s government. Al-Sisi met President
Francois Hollande in France in November 2014, and France subsequently
sold Egypt 24 Rafale fighter jets and delivered the first 3 on July 21.

In June 2015, al-Sisi met with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on the
same day that the German industrial company Siemens signed an 8 billion
euro deal to supply gas- and wind-power plants to Egypt. The government
of UK Prime Minister David Cameron has also invited al-Sisi to meet.

“The lack of justice for the victims of the Rab’a massacre and other
mass killings is an open wound in Egyptian history,” Stork said.
“Addressing this crime is necessary before Egypt can begin to move
forward.”